Snapdragon 6 Gen 3 Is Merely an Overclocked Two-Year-Old Qualcomm Chip

Snapdragon 6 Gen 3 appeared out of thin air on the company’sofficial websiterecently. That makes it the third chipset in the Snapdragon 6 series, alongside the Snapdragon 6 Gen 1 and 6s Gen 3. The company has skipped the 6 Gen 2, releasing 6 Gen 3 as a direct successor to the two-year-old 6 Gen 1. However, how big is the performance difference? What new features does the Snapdragon 6 Gen 3 bring to the table? Well, in short, nothing meaningful. To answer the question in detail, I dissect the latest Snapdragon 6 Gen 3 chipset, and here’s what I honestly think!

Just a Slightly Overclocked Snapdragon 6 Gen 1?

The Snapdragon 6 Gen 3 includes four Cortex-A78 performance cores clocked at 2.4GHz. and three Cortex-A55 efficiency cores clocked at 1.8GHz. Moreover, the chipset is based on a4nm processnode, similar to the 6 Gen 1. Side-by-side, here’s how the two chipsets compare:SpecsSnapdragon 6 Gen 3Snapdragon 6 Gen 1Fabrication Process4nm4nmCPU4x Cortex-A78 @ 2.4Ghz4x Cortex-A55 @ 1.8Ghz4x Cortex-A78 @ 2.2Ghz4x Cortex-A55 @ 1.8GhzGPUAdreno 710Adreno 710RAMUp to 3200 MHz LPDDR5Up to 3200 MHz LPDDR5DisplayFull HD+ at 120 HzFull HD+ at 120 HzISP12-bit12-bitCamera200 MP, 48 MP Zero Shutter Lag200 MP, 48 MP Zero Shutter LagVideo4K @ 30 fps4K @ 30 fpsConnectivityWi-Fi 6E, Bluetooth 5.2Wi-Fi 6E, Bluetooth 5.2ChargingQuickCharge 4+QuickCharge 4+

The difference is as much as the Snapdragon 695 had with theSnapdragon 6s Gen 3. That is to say, there’s no major difference here. Instead of the performance cores being clocked at 2.2GHz,the 6 Gen 3 takes it up to 2.4GHz.

So, essentially, theSnapdragon 6 Gen 3 is merely a 6 Gen 1 on a pinch of steroids. You get to see identical camera and video capabilities as well as connectivity support, thus, the 6 Gen 3 does not bring anything new to the table.

While Qualcomm does say that the Snapdragon 6 Gen 3’son-device AI delivers 20% better AI performance, I doubt if that’s an actual improvement. If it is, only a series of AI tests will be able to clear that out for us. Bottomline is…

Qualcomm’s Duping Customers with a Name Change

A couple of months ago, when I tried explaining theQualcomm chipset naming scheme, I realized how much of a maze it actually is. So now, we have the Snapdragon 6 Gen 3 and 6s Gen 3, but no 6 Gen 2 series chipset? And, as it turns out, the 6 Gen 3 is only a slightly overclocked 6 Gen 1. What’s Qualcomm up to with its lower-end chipsets? Is it fine to let the American chip maker simply dupe customers with an ungrateful clock speed boost and name change?

To make matters worse, Qualcomm’sSnapdragon 7s Gen 2from the upper-end Snapdragon 7-series also comes very close to the 6 Gen 3 in terms of performance. The only difference between the two is that instead of the four efficiency cores being clocked at 1.8GHz, the 7s Gen 2 has themclocked at 1.95GHz.

In addition,all three chipsets use the same Adreno 710 GPUas well. However, the 7s Gen 2 can support displays of up to FHD+ at 144Hz.

With each passing day, Qualcomm is only making the naming scheme more convoluted than it has to be. Gone are the good old days when you knew that the Snapdragon 888 would definitely be an upgrade from the Snapdragon 870.

While it’s not currently known which phone will be the first to be powered by the Snapdragon 6 Gen 3, you already know that it will essentially be as powerful as a two-year-old phone powered by the 6 Gen 1 with no substantial gain. And, from the looks of it, the processor’s existence doesn’t make any sense to me.

What do you think of the Snapdragon 6 Gen 3? Do you think it’s pointless as well? If not, why so? Drop your thoughts in the comments down below!

Sagnik Das Gupta

Sagnik is a tech aficionado who can never say “no” to dipping his toes into unknown waters of tech or reviewing the latest gadgets. He is also a hardcore gamer, having played everything from Snake Xenzia to Dead Space Remake.

Add new comment

Name

Email ID

Δ

01

02

03

04

05